Patron Saint of Hopeless Cases: St Jude and St Rita

The patron saint of hopeless cases, and of what many call lost causes, is St Jude Thaddeus, one of the twelve Apostles: the saint to whom the faithful turn when every human remedy has failed. When sickness will not lift, when a marriage lies in ruins, when a livelihood is wrecked or a soul seems past saving, Catholics place the matter under his protection and ask him to bear it to God. Beside him the faithful set St Rita of Cascia, the saint of the impossible.

The St Jude prayer for hopeless cases

When the faithful turn to St Jude in a desperate cause, this is the prayer of devotion most widely in use. It is not a liturgical prayer and its author is not known, but it is printed in countless prayer-books:

Most holy Apostle, St Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the Church honoureth and invoketh thee universally as the patron of hopeless cases, of things almost despaired of. Pray for me, who am so miserable; make use, I implore thee, of that particular privilege accorded to thee, to bring visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need, that I may receive the consolation and succour of Heaven in all my necessities, tribulations and sufferings, particularly (here name your request), and that I may bless God with thee and all the elect throughout eternity.

I promise thee, O blessed St Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favour, and I will never cease to honour thee as my special and powerful patron, and to do all in my power to encourage devotion to thee. Amen.

To it the faithful customarily add the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Glory Be, said for the intention confided to the Apostle. The fuller treatment of this prayer and of the shorter invocations is in our prayer to St Jude, patron of hopeless causes; said for nine days, it becomes the St Jude novena.

Who the patron of hopeless cases is

St Jude, Judas in the older spelling, called also Thaddeus, is one of the Twelve, named in the Gospels "Jude the brother of James", and the author of the short canonical epistle that bears his name. He is not Judas Iscariot: St Luke lists "Jude the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, who was the traitor" (Luke vi. 16), and St John, recording his question at the Last Supper, writes "Judas saith to him, not the Iscariot". According to the lessons of the Roman Breviary for his feast, he preached in Mesopotamia, then joined St Simon in Persia, where the two suffered martyrdom together; for this the Church keeps their feast together on 28 October, in the red of the martyrs. We give his life more fully in our page on St Jude the Apostle.

Scripture preserves a single trace of his voice. At the Last Supper, when Our Lord promised to manifest Himself to those who love Him, it was this Jude who asked how He would do so:

Judas saith to him, not the Iscariot: Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself to us, and not to the world? Jesus answered and said to him: If any one love me, he will keep my word. And my Father will love him and we will come to him and will make our abode with him. (John xiv. 22-23, Douay-Rheims)

It is fitting that the Apostle now invoked in the darkest straits should be remembered for asking how God comes to dwell with men; the answer he received is the only true ground of hope when a cause seems lost.

Why St Jude is the patron of hopeless and lost causes

St Jude is honoured above all as the patron of desperate cases and of causes despaired of, the saint of last resort. The explanation usually given has the character of pious tradition rather than of formal definition. Because his name was so close to that of Judas Iscariot, the faithful for long ages were slow to invoke him, fearing confusion with the betrayer; and so, the tradition holds, this neglected Apostle became all the readier to help those who finally turned to him in extremity. Butler's Lives of the Saints records the invocation of St Jude "as believed to have special efficacy in desperate cases", referring to the Bollandists' Acta Sanctorum for October. In the twentieth century the devotion spread widely in the English-speaking world, notably from the shrine founded at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Chicago in 1929.

His own epistle bears the same confidence, closing with praise of the God "who is able to preserve you without sin and to present you spotless before the presence of his glory" (Jude 24, Douay-Rheims). To call a case hopeless, in the mouth of a Christian, is only to confess that human means have run out; it is never to say that the cause is hopeless to God, "because no word shall be impossible with God" (Luke i. 37). That is why the patron of lost causes is better understood as the patron of causes that only seem lost.

Patron saint of lost causes, or of lost things?

The two are often confused in searches. The patron saint of lost causes is St Jude, invoked for situations that seem beyond remedy. The saint invoked for lost things, a ring, a document, the keys, is St Anthony of Padua; our prayer to St Anthony gives the traditional responsory. When people speak of the patron saints of lost causes in the plural, they mean St Jude and St Rita together.

How to pray rightly for a hopeless cause

A prayer to St Jude is not a charm, and the Apostle is not a worker of marvels on demand. To call him the patron of hopeless causes is not to claim that he answers every petition as we frame it, nor to make of his name a formula that compels Heaven. It is to ask one of God's Apostles to bear our cause before Him, exactly as we ask the prayers of a friend. This is the constant teaching on the communion of saints, which the Church celebrates on All Saints' Day: the blessed reign with Christ and intercede for us, and to seek their prayers honours, not diminishes, the one Mediator.

The Christian who invokes St Jude does not abandon the ordinary means. He uses prudence and labour; he keeps the Sacraments; in serious matters he goes to Confession, and in grave sickness asks for Extreme Unction. To the human means that cannot reach his cause he adds the intercession of an Apostle, and he prays in conformity to the will of God, asking to receive what he seeks if it be for the good of his soul, and to receive peace if it be not.

The novena to St Jude for desperate cases

The custom of making a novena to St Jude, nine successive days of prayer for one intention, flows naturally from his patronage of the desperate, for the soul in distress is moved to persevere. Its favoured season is the nine days before his feast, from 19 to 27 October, but it may be made at any time. The full text, the order of the nine days and the answers to the usual questions are in our St Jude novena.

St Rita, patron of impossible causes

Beside St Jude the faithful set a second great advocate of the desperate: St Rita of Cascia, honoured as the saint of the impossible. An Augustinian nun of fifteenth-century Umbria, first a long-suffering wife and a bereaved mother before she entered religion, she died in 1457 and was canonised by Pope Leo XIII in the Holy Year 1900. Her feast falls on 22 May; it is kept by the Augustinians and in many places, though not on the general Roman calendar. Where St Jude is the Apostle of last resort, St Rita is invoked for causes humanly impossible, and the two are commonly invoked together. Her nine days of prayer are in our novena to St Rita.

Her title rests on the shape of her life. A marriage she did not choose, a violent husband she could not change by her own strength, the loss of that husband and then of both her sons, a religious vocation refused her at the convent door: in each case the way was shut, and in each case it was opened, not by her contriving but by God answering a patience that would not give up. A short invocation often used is simply: St Rita, advocate of the impossible, pray for us.

When you feel hopeless: a word of Scripture

Many who search for the patron of hopeless cases are also looking for a Bible verse for when they feel hopeless. Scripture answers with more than comfort: it turns the trial itself into hope. St Paul writes to the Romans:

And not only so: but we glory also in tribulation, knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience trial; and trial hope; and hope confoundeth not: because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost who is given to us. (Romans v. 3-5, Douay-Rheims)

And when the soul sinks beneath its own weight, the Psalmist commands it back to hope:

Why art thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou trouble me? Hope in God, for I will still give praise to him. (Psalm xli. 6, Douay-Rheims; Psalm 42 in the Hebrew numbering)

These are not consolations that deny the darkness; they are the speech of men who knew it. More passages of this kind are gathered in our selection of Catholic Bible verses.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the patron saint of hopeless cases?

St Jude Thaddeus, one of the twelve Apostles, invoked when every human remedy has failed. The usual explanation is that, because his name was so close to that of Judas Iscariot, the faithful were long slow to invoke him, so that the neglected Apostle became the friend of neglected causes. St Rita of Cascia is honoured beside him as the saint of the impossible.

Who is the patron saint of lost causes?

The same saint: St Jude Thaddeus. "Lost causes", "hopeless cases" and "desperate cases" are three names for the same patronage. If you are looking for the saint of lost objects, that is St Anthony of Padua.

Who are the patron saints of lost causes?

Strictly there is one, St Jude. When people speak of several, they add St Rita of Cascia, invoked for impossible causes. In a crossword clue "patron saint of lost causes" the expected answer is usually ST JUDE.

Is St Jude the same as Judas Iscariot?

No. St Jude, also called Thaddeus, is one of the faithful Apostles, "the brother of James". Judas Iscariot betrayed Our Lord. St John marks the difference himself: "Judas saith to him, not the Iscariot" (John xiv. 22). The likeness of the names is precisely why, by the usual explanation, St Jude was long neglected.

What is the St Jude prayer for hopeless cases?

It begins: "Most holy Apostle, St Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the Church honoureth and invoketh thee universally as the patron of hopeless cases, of things almost despaired of." The full text is given above. It is a prayer of devotion, widely printed, not a liturgical text; the Church's own prayer to him is the Collect of his feast on 28 October.

What is the difference between St Jude and St Rita?

Both are invoked for causes that seem beyond remedy, and often together. St Jude is an Apostle and martyr, patron of hopeless cases. St Rita, an Augustinian nun who died in 1457, is the saint of the impossible, sought especially in marriage and family trials, drawn from the sorrows of her own life.

What Bible verse helps when you feel hopeless?

St Paul: "tribulation worketh patience; and patience trial; and trial hope; and hope confoundeth not" (Romans v. 3-5). The Psalmist: "Why art thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou trouble me? Hope in God" (Psalm xli. 6, Psalm 42 in the Hebrew numbering). Both are quoted above from the Douay-Rheims.

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Sources. Holy Scripture, Douay-Rheims version (Luke vi. 16; John xiv. 22-23; Jude 24; Luke i. 37; Romans v. 3-5; Psalm xli. 6); the Roman Breviary, lessons of the feast of Saints Simon and Jude (28 October); Butler's Lives of the Saints (Saints Simon and Jude, 28 October); the prayer of devotion to St Jude as printed in Catholic prayer-books; the Roman Missal of 1962 (Saints Simon and Jude, feast of the second class, 28 October).